


The Space Between

by ai_firestarter



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-18
Updated: 2014-10-18
Packaged: 2018-02-21 15:22:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2473043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ai_firestarter/pseuds/ai_firestarter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will is used to thinking of Brody Kirsch as “the kid”. He’s just so unbelievably, agonisingly young. A boy in the flush of his youth. And he’s started to take up more space in Will’s brain than he’s comfortable with.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Space Between

Will is used to thinking of Brody Kirsch as "the kid".

He never puts the milk away. He's never made his bed. He watches more Adventure Time than an adult should. He plays video games constantly. He gets excited when he learns a new word, even when the word is fairly common, like "exceptional" or "appendage". And his fondest wish, as far as Will can tell, is to retire to an Alaskan villa where he could cook and drink beer all day every day.

He's just so unbelievably, agonisingly young. A boy in the flush of his youth. More than Will, whose own youth was an exercise in suppressing rage and desires of patricide, ever was.

It's irritating and charming and distracting as hell. Because as useful as Brody has been - and he has been very useful, as a distraction at the various parties where William has had family business to attend to - he's started to take up more space in Will's brain than he's comfortable with.

Mutual friends (like William's dangerous siblings, all fanged smirks and cool hunger) call him Will's puppy, and that's not exactly far off.

Will's never exactly felt old. He was only twenty when his chance encounter with a bloody bombshell outside an Austrian tomb left him with eternal youth, and ever since he's been immersed in a family of older vampires. He's eternally been the little brother, and he's taken to it like a fish to water.

Aside from his family obligations, he was used to tearing a hedonistic strip across modern civilisation. He loved cocaine, dabbled in heroin and opium, and once spent an entire month on mushrooms for fun. He seduced tasty morsels from all across the gender spectrum with glee. As much as he called Mircalla a "brat", his reputation was that of a callow youth overindulging. A reputation he happily cultivated.

(Perhaps he was battling old demons, but acknowledging scars from before your death has always been considered 'weak' in this family. More than once William's weak mind had been discussed with some amusement.)

So. Eighty years of indulgence and anger. Of taking whatever he wanted. Of bowing to responsibilities others in his family shirked. Of being the youngest.

Somehow all this history pales to the experience of watching Kirsch try to figure out how chess works, exactly.

He feels desperately old next to this boy with the dancing eyes. He feels ugly compared to the kid's brilliant, unencumbered smile.

He wishes that were enough to kill the deeper feelings he's developed for the boy. A mix of protective fervour and breathless lust that leaves his mind spinning. Living feet from Brody Kirsch is a nightmare of restraint, a muscle William is not used to exercising.

He sits with the kid through his grief spiral over his dead girlfriend, and curls up with him on the couch watching Grey's Anatomy for weeks because "it was SJ's favourite and I don't wanna be alone right now". He makes himself available at all times for texts and calls, much to his family's frustration. He even leaves Mircalla and the little nerd alone because his desire to screw with them is smaller than hs desire to make sure this boy, this gem of a human being, survives his first real fistfight with grief. Will just shows up, automatically and consistently, and still doesn't quite get how Kirsch can do this to him. He's a goddamn vampire. He's an asshole. A murderous sociopath.

He's a bad person, and Kirsch is a good person, and the twain are supposed to never meet. He knows this like the feel of his own skin. He feels the space between them like an anchor in his belly.

Morality, Will's always said, is the shadow in which the weak hide from the strong. He's having trouble conjuring up passion for that sentiment now.

Kirsch surprises him. Kirsch, who actually knows how to cook almost everything in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Who surprises Will and Sarah Jane with a perfectly-cooked Thon à la Provençale after midterms without blinking - after convincing the infamously terrifying lunch ladies to borrow their kitchen for an afternoon, an even greater feat. Who knows without Will mentioning it when Mother is up his ass and spontaneously cleans the dorm - and even throws on a movie, knowing Will would say no if he asked, but will inexorably be drawn to it anyway. Kirsch, who wouldn't read a red flag mid-flirt if the girl smacked him in the face, yet somehow knows before Will does what Will is feeling.

Which is why, six weeks after SJ's memorial and two weeks after he's mostly stopped crying, after seventeen beers between them and in the middle of a (terrible) rerun of Friends that Will is only watching because Brody likes it...

All this is how Kirsch kisses him first.

A heady mix of YESTHANKFUCKINGGODFINALLY and shitnothisisabadidea assault Will's system at once, paralysing him right there on the couch. Kirsch, to his credit, looks pretty tentative himself. Even if his lips are wet and his eyes firm.

Finally Will finds his words, jerking and flecked with guilt, . "Brody... Don't you worry about me, man. You don't have to--"

"To what?" The edge of Kirsch's mouth pulls up into a half-smile and amusement enters his eyes. The boy has the upper hand, finally, and knows it. Jesus does he know it.

"You don't have to do something just because I want you to."

"Okay. But Will?"

"Yeah?"

"Can I kiss you because you're hot? And, like, because you take care of me like I took care of SJ? And because I don't just wanna be bros any more? Can I kiss you  _then_?"

Will knows from his grin that Kirsch already knows the answer.

"Fuck you," Will says and smiles, grabbing Kirsch by the collar and pulling him in for a real kiss. And then another and another until dawn breaks and everything hurts in the best of ways.


End file.
